


this week

by gotbtx (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: References to Depression, Self-Harm, explicit content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 00:47:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/gotbtx





	this week

A long tee shirt and plain boxers.

It’s regular nightwear for Kun, even in the midst of the November weather, the cold creeping into the dorms. He sits in his desk chair, bare feet pressed flat against the cool smoothness of the wall in front of him, staring at his knees. Horizontal lines that run from years of bending, the rough smoothness of it, the areas of distorted, raised skin where it’s healed and scarred, old, faint, barely noticeable.

Guilt.

He remembers when he used to feel guilt, the surge of realization after waking up and the dull soreness of fresh scabs ease into his mind, the ghost of disappointment riding his shoulders if someone noticed, had an  _ inkling _ of an idea. He assumes he would still feel that guilt now, rolling inside his stomach and pushing down the temptation, the urge, but all he feels now is the consuming numbness through his chest, his bones, his toes and fingertips.

His fingertips.

They shake, just a bit, and Kun blames it on the cigarette he smoked some half hours ago. It hadn’t helped, only made his stomach lurch and his head pound, and he knew that was all they were worth, adding to the uneasiness of it all, but he had thought it would at least work as a sort of distraction. It hadn’t, and of all the things Kun still felt nowadays, the  _ weight _ of it was one of the only things to remind him he still could feel. It sat on his shoulder, hung from the corners of his lips, wrapped around his ankles, and he wishes to lie, even to himself, to say that it’s okay, that the load isn’t too heavy for him, that it  _ doesn’t ache. _

But it does.

His hands twitch, almost flinch, in a bout of anticipation, the coolness of the metal pressing to the pads of his fingers. He breathes in and pulls the skin of his knee taught, a habit, presses the sharpness into his skin, but doesn’t move. He wills himself to, once, twice, three times, but his fingers, along with the blade, stay still and trembling. It’s a routine for Kun, the deep, calming breaths, the hesitation, the numbness that has consumed everything in him.

The chance to feel something more than that numbness.

And it’s then that his hand moves, that he stops psyching himself out over the sting because it isn’t awful, it never is. He stares, the beads of blood small, miniscule, and he goes over the cut once more, slicing in deeper, pulling more blood through the seam of skin. They clump together into a pool and Kun still stares, moves the skin around the wound in an almost fascination, the sting sharper than before, but still nothing more than a pin prick of pain.

And in this moment, that sting is all he feels.

His mind latches to any semblance of a thought it can as he holds a sock to the wound, the same black sock he’s always used, the cloudiness making it difficult to to tether down a solid train of thought. His stomach flips in the ghost of fear that someone will wake up, will see, will  _ confront him _ . He swallows it down, lifts the soft fabric and blots at the wound, another habit. He likes to believe he has this handled, that he does this because he  _ wants to _ ; that it’s just how he can control it, the numbness, and that they wouldn’t understand, none of them. All he would get is disappointment, pity, nothing more than weary side glances full of worry from thenonout because no one would guess it was him, that he was the one hurting after all the fronts he put up, that he had issues as well, because he was the hyung, the one who had everything under control.

_ The strong one. _

Kun sighs at that.


End file.
